Researching underwater noise

Presenter: 
David Santos Domínguez
Date: 
Thursday, December 3, 2015 - 23:59
Abstract: 

Regulations have started to be on the spot. In the case of Europe, European Marine Strategy Framework Directive for Good Environmental Status established the directives to accomplish by all European countries, but its application it has been delayed several times because its still needed more information about how to practically evaluate and measure the underwater noise.

Present research began 4 years ago under ECODRAGA, a dredger innovation project aimed at reducing the pollution produced by suction dredging operations where one of the objectives was to evaluate the effect of the dredger modifications over the underwater noise generated. During this researching process several problems and solutions appeared that could be grouped in 3 main tasks developed:

  • Measurement and calculation of underwater propagation losses and, therefore, source levels
  • Underwater vessel noise database creation and validity testing with an automatic classifier
  • Towards a underwater noise map model: calibration of measurements and software simulations in order to create a valid noise map model

These tasks will be explained in detail reaching the actual point of the investigation.

Bio: 

David Santos Domínguez had a Telecommunication Engineering degree (2009) from the University of Vigo, ended with a 9 months research period at DTU Acoustics department in Copenhaguen. He has worked in Sonitum acoustics research group of Vigo University in musical acoustics, psicoacoustics, noise, signal processing, under water acoustics projects. Actual areas of research are: underwater acoustics and signal processing.